Power-One, Inc., a US electronics company, announced yesterday they are expanding their Dominican Republic Zona Franca Las Americas facility. Brad Godfrey, senior vice president of operations announced he company is investing US$30 million in high-speed Surface Mount Technology (SMT) lines and other capital equipment over the next 18 months. The company is a leading designer and manfuacturer of power conversion products sold to telecommunications and Internet service providers, and datacom and telecom equipment manufacturers. In the DR, Power One began operations with a 65,000 square foot facility in 1994. Today the company has 150,000 square feet of facilities and employs over 2,500 people. The expansion calls for the adding of a 100,000 square foot high-technology assembly plant to manufacture high-density DC-DC converters and Telecom products. An additional 1,000 employees will be hired. For information on employment opportunities, contact Joey Arce, Director of Human Resources at (809) 549-2747. The expansion seeks to support the growth of their customers such as Alcatel, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Lucent, MCI Worldcom, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel Networks, Qwest and Williams Communications. Godfrey explained that the company is also designing power supplies at the Santo Domingo plant. DR-based engineers have already developed three new products. "We hope to send a clear message that our Dominican Republic operations utilize some of the most advanced electronics manufacturing systems in the world. Everyone at Power-One is very proud of the accomplishments of the DR team." The company is headquartered in California, and has over 6,000 employees in manufacturing operations in California, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Ireland, Slovakia, Norway and China, in addition to the DR operation.
